Thursday, December 27, 2012

Well, as of yesterday, I have a couple of bugs with sore throats so I decided to make some honey and lemon suckers since one of the bugs is only three years old. I stumbled across a few recipes for this a while back and thought it was time to make some.

Here is how I did it.

1 cup honey (I used local)

2 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Candy Thermometer

Lollipop Sticks

Non-stick surface

Heat your honey and lemon juice to hard crack stage, stirring constantly. Spoon small amounts onto a non-stick surface, I used my silpat, and add sticks (in my case, I was out of lollipop sticks so I used craft sticks). Let cool.

There are some recipes that call for peppermint oil also. I might try those next!

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It is that simple. Homemade, all natural, sore throat soother! Boy how I love to give my family all natural, homemade goodness!

Monday, December 24, 2012

Well, as we get closer to the end of our Advent, I don't have many pictures to share. Most of our crafts were at the beginning. We are still having fun.

Day 21.......

This day we took a drive to the little town we live in and looked at all of the Christmas lights. We meet a friend with a few of her little children and enjoyed the lights together. It was a fun trip.

Day 22.......

Today we were suppose to watch "Merry Madagascar" and pop popcorn but we decided to watch something else. Still had a good family night.

Day 23.......

Tonight was our Christmas musical at our church. We had a lot of things to do all day today so I decided to make this a special day on our Advent! We really enjoyed ourselves at church singing beautiful hymns about our Lord Jesus Christ!

Day 24.....

Today on our Advent ornament is tells us to bake a birthday cake for Jesus. We will do this and enjoy it for breakfast Christmas morning. We always bake a cake for him and sing Happy Birthday!

Our last day of our Advent is today and on Christmas Day we will enjoy our family together and praise God in the process!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Well, trying to keep up and not doing to good of a job but here it goes!

Day 17.......

Make a Christmas craft. We decided to make more homemade ornaments for gifts and peppermint and gingerbread playdoh. Well, we only got the ornaments made and are planning on making the playdoh a little later. Maybe have a fun day!

We took a Christmas scrapbooking punch and used green, white and red construction paper to make these cute little Christmas trees to fill our clear ornaments.

This one is not quite finished but you get the idea! I just realized I don't have a picture of the finished one!!!

Day 18.......

This day we took our school and changed it up a little. We were suppose to learn about the North Pole, so I decided to make this fun and instead of doing our regular work, we focused on Geography, all day. We learned about the Arctic circle, the North Pole, Arctic animals and what a tundra is. We had a really good time. We even learned about real reindeer!

Day 19.......

This day we were suppose to make goodies for everyone but as you know, our plans changed! I forgot about an eye appointment for my oldest bug so, the two oldest bugs and I decided to finish our Christmas shopping after the appointment. We had a really good time! We are planning on finishing with the homemade goodies Friday!

Day 20.......

Today was a real busy day also. Thank goodness today I had something planned for the night. My three oldest bugs have all seen some of the Christmas classics that are shown on tv every year. Well, we have not had cable tv for almost two years, so, the two youngest bugs that are 3 and 5 years old either have not seen any or don't remember them. So, I decided to buy A Charlie Brown Christmas DVD and wrap it and put it under the tree for tonight.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

We had a ball! We went to town and looked at Christmas lights and instead of hot chocolate for our snack, we decided to get TCBY! Yummy! Lots of fun and memories!

Day 14.......

This was suppose to be family game night but the plans changed. I needed to finish my Christmas shopping so hubby kept all the bugs Friday night and I finished!!!!!!!

Day 15......

This day we were suppose to make a Rice Krispies Holiday Train but we had to change our plans again! We had to build a goat pen for our two new dairy goats! We spent the day together and made up for our family night and had a family day! Lots of fun. I will post pictures of our new farm animal members later.

Day 16.....

Today we had planned on singing Christmas songs together while our 2nd born bug played the piano. Instead, we decided to make our Rice Krispies Holiday Train and some Rice Krispies Christmas Trees.

For our train, I found this little kit at Hobby Lobby.

Everyone had such a good time with this!

For our trees, we used used the rice krispie recipe that is on the box of Rice Krispies and pressed it into a small plastic funnel for the Christmas tree shape. Then they decorated the trains and the trees. FUN, FUN, FUN!

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I am really looking forward to tomorrow! I am the only one that knows what is in store, hehe!

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Well, I think I am getting further and further behind with this! I really have good intentions on getting on here and blogging about this fun Advent we are doing this year but I run out of time every single day! I am really trying! Day 8.......Well, Day 8, we haven't done yet. I know it sounds bad but we will do it. We were suppose to make Christmas cards for the family. I still have a plan, we just need to take time to do them.Day 9.......We made homemade hot chocolate and put french vanilla marshmallows in it. It was yummy!

Here is one our tree. We also made some of these cute little guys for some elderly ladies in our community.

Day 11.......Well, we are doing this day tomorrow. The plans for this day and Thursday changed. This day we were suppose to make Reese's Fudge for some elderly ladies in the community and take it to them. We are making the fudge tomorrow and taking it to them along with the pipe cleaner candy canes. I will post recipe and pictures of the fudge later.Day 12......Today was really the first day we didn't have some kind of craft or cooking to do with our Advent. I got the bugs a new Wii game the other day and instead of giving it to them right away, I decided to let it be a surprise on one of their Advent days. They have really been enjoying it tonight. As for Day 13, I think they are really going to enjoy what I have planned. Until then......God Bless!

First we decided what kind of shapes we wanted for the ornaments, then we put them on a foil lined cookie sheet.

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This one is our first batch of ornaments and we forgot to leave a space some where, so we could run a ribbon through it and hang it. Our second batch looks like the one hanging on the tree.After you have them on the cookie sheet, bake them at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let them cool before attaching the ribbon. We decided to take our first batch and hot glue the ribbon to the back of the ornament and it worked fine.Day 7.......This day we baked Christmas cookies. The recipe we used was found on the back of a Hershey's Kisses bag. They are Hershey's Kisses Peanut Butter Blossoms.

Here is the recipe off the back of the pack. This recipe makes approx. 4 dozen cookies.

Hershey's Kisses Peanut Butter Blossoms

48 Hershey's Kisses

1/2 cup shortening(I uses coconut oil)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 Tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Granulated Sugar

Directions: Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove wrappers from chocolates. Beat shortening and peanut butter in a large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack and cool completely.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Well, as you can see, around this homestead I am not keeping up with this blog everyday! We are getting things done I just run out of time to post them!

Day 3.........................

﻿CINNAMON-APPLESAUCE ORNAMENTS!

﻿These were so much fun to make. We decided to glitter them instead of leaving them plain like this:

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﻿Here is the recipe for these yummy smelling ornaments!

I took 1 cup of cinnamon, 1/2 cup of applesauce and about 3/4 cup of Elmer's glue and mixed it all together and made a dough. We rolled it out and used Christmas cookie cutters for the shapes. We baked them for 30 minutes at 250 degrees. After they cooled, we decorated them with glitter. So much fun!

Here are some of these cute little ornaments hanging on our tree!

Day 4.................................

Well, Day 4, we had a change of plans. We were suppose to make reindeer fingerprint ornaments where you take a solid color glass ornament and dip your finger into brown paint and make a reindeer head with your finger print and press it onto the solid ornament. Well, I had a bright idea that clear ornaments would work for this, well, guess what.....NOT! We made a trial run and the finger print will not show up on clear ornaments. So, I had to go to plan B, in this house there is always a plan B!!!

This is what we did with the clear glass ornaments I bought.

Filled one with colorful sprinkles. Look how pretty! We were only able to make one, because of the amount of sprinkles it takes but our one turned out AWESOME!

Day 5.......................................

This day we had two things on our advent ornament. We were to make Root Beer Floats and watch "The Polar Express" after church. Everyone was really excited about this. In the morning, after we read the back of our advent ornament, we decided to make homemade root beer instead of using store bought. I had recently bought the root beer extract and had planned on us making some but it just got forgotten. Well, I thought this would be a great time to make some so we did.

The recipe on the back of the extract bottle said to use 1 quart of water or sparkling water, 8 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of root beer extract. We used club soda and it turned out delicious!

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﻿We have never seen "The Polar Express" before, so I decided to buy it , wrap it up and let them open it that night. We had a good time watching a new movie (to us) and drinking our homemade root beer floats!

I know this is Day 6 but, you know me, already behind. Except this time I have an excuse, Mommy is under the weather!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Well, as you can see, what I planned for today did not happen. First, I just bought a new camera and have no idea how to use it. I did figure out enough to take a few pictures but my computer doesn't want to cooperate! I sat down tonight to get the pictures off of my SD card and was not successful. So, after church tomorrow I will be working on getting all of that fixed.On top of not accomplishing what I wanted with our Advent ornaments, we spent most of the day going to get two milk goats that a family so graciously gave us. I have been wanting milking goats for a little while now and when this opportunity came up, we couldn't pass it up. I am going to try to take some pictures tomorrow and hopefully will be able to post them with no problem in the next few days.Wish me luck and maybe by this time tomorrow night, I will have everything up and running!!!!God Bless!